Saturday, May 8, 2010

Fron EndNote to Zotero

Almost three years after switching from Library Master to EndNote, I have decided to make the switch from EndNote to Zotero, the free library management program produced by the Center for History and New Media. Here's why:

1) I just made the mostly happy switch from Windows XP to Windows 7, and from Office 2007 to Office 2010. Unfortunately, my current version of EndNote (X1) does not format footnotes in Office 2010 (or Windows 7--I'm not sure which). I can either pay $100 for an upgrade to the latest version of EndNote or switch to Zotero . . . for free.

2) In the process of upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 I neglected to back-up several EndNote Output Styles I had spent hours creating. Since I will now have to recreate at least one of the Output styles anyway, I might as well learn Zotero's Citation Style Language. With my rudimentary knowledge of XML, learning the syntax should be doable. When I'm done, I can upload new Output styles to the Zotero Style Repository.

3) Zotero's ability to download records from libraries and other websites is much better than EndNote X1's clunky online search process; Zotero manages groups better than EndNote X1; I think I will like its interface better too, once I get used to it. There are helpful overviews of Zotero here and here.

Hopefully, this transition will go more smoothly than my last bout with productivity software.

4 comments:

Isaac Gross said...

I could never get used to EndNote. I probably had an earlier version. Zotero looks decent though . . .

nicholas meyer said...

Thanks for pointing this out!

Ben Byerly said...

1. Which new styles will you be creating? I would like to tweak the SBL style, but I don't know where to begin. (I had to reprogram scholar's Aid which I use, and I am using both simultaneously while I migrate.)

2. Would you consider forming a couple of groups so we could benefit from your huge collection. I've started Acts, Luke-Acts, and populated a couple of NT groups' empty libraries, but you could save a lot of people a lot of time by dumping your libraries into groups people could join.

Keep me posted

d. miller said...

Hi Ben,

I'll consider the groups idea, but since so many of my records contain my own 'private' information, it would probably take a lot of time to prepare...